William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest is probably the most influential piece of writing in the entire “trapped in the wilderness” genre. Aside from Homer’s Odyssey, The Tempest is also one of the first pieces to detail such a scenario, inspiring works such as Defoe’s William Crusoe, Gelding’s Lord of the Flies and hundreds more. These works have romanticized the concept of being lost and alone in the wilderness to the point where some people have literally tried to “lose themselves” in the woods. Take Christopher McCandless, for example, the young man who attempted to survive on his own in the harsh Alaskan winter, using an abandoned bus in the woods for shelter. He made a go of it for a while but eventually got some sort of food poisoning and eventually died, although his story was immortalized by John Krakauer’s book Into the Wild and a feature length film of the same name.

While most people have the good sense not to try and create such a life for themselves they are still fascinated by this concept, as is apparent by the countless fictional stories about such individuals. As an avid outdoors-person, I’ve often thought about what it would be like to live off the land in an isolated shelter in the woods, but I’m pretty sure that I would go insane if I never got to see other people. Humans are inherently social creatures and I think it is safe to say that long-term isolation would have devastating effects on any person’s mental health; possibly even driving them talk to and make friends with inanimate objects like volleyballs. While this kind of a lifestyle might not be realistically possible, reading and fantasizing about it certainly provides a break from the hustle and bustle of day to day life.